James Cameron Says AVATAR 2 & AVATAR 3 Will Be Shot Together; Expects Most of the Cast to Return

Back in October, we reported that James Cameron’s Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 were looking at Christmas 2014/2015 release dates respectively. At that time, though, we weren’t sure if the plan was to shoot the films back-to-back or if Cameron/Fox were going to sit back and count the profits from Avatar 2 (which will require a considerable amount of time, I’m sure) before lensing the third. Today, though, Cameron has confirmed that the projects will be shot at the same time. In a recent interview, the writer/director/producer said:

“I am in the process of writing the next two Avatar films now. We are planning to shoot them together and post them together, and we will probably release them not quite back to back, but about a year apart. Christmas ’14 and ’15 is the current plan.”

For more on what Cameron had to say about the returning cast members and potential Avatar charity work, hit the jump.

Talking with EW’s Inside Movies, Cameron assured fans that much of the original cast will return for Avatar 2:

“Basically, if you survived the first film, you get to be in the second film, at least in some form.”

In addition to breaking the sequels’ shooting, editing, and casting plans, Cameron also confirmed that both films would be of a charitable mind:

“One thing’s for sure: some percentage of the presumably-massive Avatar sequel gross will go to charity. Fox has partnered with me to donate a chunk of the profits to environmental causes that are at the heart of the Avatar world. I didn’t want to make more Avatar movies without a grander plan in place.”

In case you were unaware, 2009’s Avatar earned a little over $2.7 billion at box offices worldwide against a production budget thought to be somewhere around $250 million. As such, after catching wind of this generous plan, I wouldn’t be surprised to see “environmental causes” popping up everywhere in the near future. In fact, if anyone knows of any holes in the “environmental causes market,” feel free to send them my way.